LABOUR councillors have said they will challenge Liverpool-based social housing provider Plus Dane on its service to tenants.

The neighbourhood investor was selected on Monday as the preferred bidder to take over the management of the 5,600 council homes across Ellesmere Port and Neston this summer

The comments came as Cheshire West and Chester Council’s Tory-controlled executive agreed to appoint Plus Dave as the preferred bidder for the £100m contract.

If an option to extend the initial three-year contract for a further two years is taken up, the council believes savings of £6m could be achieved. This would be hand-in-hand with benefits including the equivalent of a three-star quality service, 300 new homes in the first three years and 75 apprenticeships.

Council leader Cllr Mike Jones (Con) told the executive there had already been ‘significant improvements’ to the service it had inherited from the former borough council, which at one stage was said to be no star with little prospect of improvement.

He said he had thanked the Neston and Ellesmere Port Tenants and Residents Organisation for their hard work in connection with the contract.

Cllr Tony Sherlock (Lab) told the executive the work of individual members of the organisation had been ‘outstanding’.

He insisted, however, that ‘determination has overshadowed democracy’ and referred to the decision by the former borough council’s tenants to reject a complete outsourcing of the service even though a considerable amount of money had been spent by the council on a ‘Yes’ campaign. He said councillors would continue to challenge the system ‘as that is why people elected us’.

“We shall be making sure a good deal is delivered a on a day-to-day basis,” he added.